This weeks Learn & Play #10 was a lot of fun, be prepared to spend time checking all the fun things out. My favs from the L&P suggested sites are FD Toys and The Generator Blog. Specifically Trading Cards in FD Toys (which I mentioned in a previous posting) and the Make Your Own Coat of Arms generator in the Generator Blog. Both are fun just be prepared to stay awhile and look at everything.  They’re easy to use, fun to play with.

I picked the Make Your Own Coat of Arms for obvious reasons.  Now you know how your ancestors got theirs ; ). Check out my coat of arms from a very ancient line.

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It’s amazing how much we depend on technology to make our lives easier. Tools such as PowerPoint make it easy to create great presentations. With just a few tips you can quickly be on your way to creating simple to very dynamic presentations that wow your audience. As mentioned in previous post, mashups and 3rd-party tools on Flickr make your blogging and Flickr experience fun and interesting as well. And thanks to the technology gods for the flash drive. I have my work world in my hand and can move quickly from one computer to the next (office, classroom, home, conference) with little or no muss and fuss. We live in a great time where we can harness technology to do good.

I recently signed up again for a “personal” subscription to Ancestry.com. They have a cool tool called “My Tree” that allows you to create a family tree and as you do so Ancestry automatically starts to search all of it’s databases for records that might match the persons you include in your pedigree. With a few simple clicks you can review these “hints” or sources (census, church, military, all kinds of records), edit the information you wish to add to your family history, and based on this new information you’ve added Ancestry continues to look for more information you might find useful.

One might quickly think that with technology like this, there would be no need for book, document and record collections or the people who work in them. This would not be the case. First this is available to subscribers only and not everyone would be able to afford the price nor always have access to a computer and the Internet to access Ancestry.com. Even though subscribers might use Ancestry to create the pedigree and family history with supporting records available through it’s database, users still need us to evaluate what they find and to offer advice on which record would hold more prominence in proving the facts presente. At this point in time Ancestry.com does not have every record from everyplace in the world in it’s electronic collection. Sometimes those digitized records they do have may not have been scanned properly and are illegible or at best very hard to read. Users will be happy to know that the physcial copies of these are out there in a government agency, archives, or library just waiting for the researcher to find and use them to further their own research and we will be there waiting to assist them in this endeavor.

With that said, technology is great and it makes life easier but in some cases it is not perfect. Human or technological errors such as; poor quality digitization or illegible scans, poor selections in metadata or a lack of some controlled vocabulary can render these resources difficult (if not impossible) to find.  Even something as simple as no power or charging for information that was once free, can disconnect or disassociate the user from the sources they need. Until the technology of the digital world is without any flaws we need to take the more “antiquated” approach of learning research methodology, learning how to evaluate and interpret what we find before we present it to the world as credible, authortative information and/or facts about any topic including our family and our lives.

Thanks to Learn & Play I took some time to experience Flickr.  Flickr is technology that makes sharing photo’s easy and fun.   It was very easy to upload photos, do some simple editing, tag (so that others might find them), create sets or groupings of photo’s to suit my particular interests, in this case some of my ancestors. This is a great tool for anyone but especially genealogists to create photosets (albums) or slideshows and quickly and easily share with other members of the family anywhere in the world.  I’ve known about Flickr but not truly used it in the past.  Now that I’ve learned more about it and how easy it is to use I highly recommend that other use it or other photo sites to  greatly enhance ones family history photos and photo sharing experience.

Genealogy starts at home with you. One of the main rules of genealogy is always start with yourself and work your way back through the generations. It’s not advisable to begin several generations back and work your way forward as you might find you’ve traced the wrong family.

TOOLS…You’ll need two simple tools to help you along, a pedigree chart and family group record. Start by filling in information about yourself and immediate family (spouse/partner, children, parents, and grandparents). Don’t worry about not having every fact on these forms. The fun comes later when you begin looking for information and sources to verify (or document) what you already know and fill in what you don’t know.

READING…I’d recommend reading a book about how to do your genealogy. Check your local library or bookstore for Emily Anne Croom’s Unpuzzling Your Past: The Best Selling Guide to Genealogy. This is a simple, quick and easy read that will give you the basics for starting your research.

DOCUMENTATION…Another rule of genealogy is that you should document all of your facts. The next step is to look for documents around your home to verify the information you have thus far. Are there vital records such as birth/marriage or death certificates, deeds, wills, pictures, family bible, letters, or any other documents that relate to your family’s life experience?

Documentation is especially important when you begin to share your work with other family members or if you decide to apply for membership in a lineage society such as the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) or Sons of the American Revolution. These societies will ask that you verify and document your lineage back to an ancestor.

Not only does documentation prove the facts you have noted, it might also provide a clue to other information or records that will help you continue your research.

Don’t forget to cite your sources. Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian by Elizabeth Shown Mills is the authoritative source for genealogists learning to cite their sources.

Starting your genealogy is easy. Just follow the steps mentioned above and you’l be on your way. I’ll continue the process in another segment.

One of the Madman’s interests is Genealogy and I happen to be lucky enough for it to be an integral part of my job. Everyday I get questions about family and local history and enjoy helping others find their ancestors or information about them. I’ll be periodically posting information here and offering advice to those who need help. So if you have any questions, need help, or a comment please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer your questions or refer you to someone who might be able to assist you.